Because I have. Last year my three girls all had them terribly. We couldn't get rid of them. I tried every different type of treatment and nothing seemed to work. After a couple of months of trying I finally went to the doctor and got a prescription for some treatment. This seemed to work to a degree but still didn't completely eradicate them.
Around this time, Shirley from seeking Jesus posted a post on her sister's blog about essential oils. She said, if you have any questions, email me so I did.
Shirley sent me a list of oil's and I went and got them. I mixed a couple of different ones in the shampoo and conditioner and put some eucalyptus oil with olive oil onto the girls scalp. After just three days the lice were noticeably less. After a week, I couldn't see any but still kept putting the oil on their heads every other night for another two weeks just to make sure. We were cured and I was very thankful to Shirley. I let her know.
So today I was doing Amelia's hair, just before we left for school I noticed the lice and eggs.
So I am starting the process again. I did Amelia's hair with the oil today when we got home, She has obviously had these for a while because there were lots of adult size ones coming out with the comb. I will do the other girls tomorrow because they both have after school activities today. Tom and Christopher both have pretty short hair and I don't think they have any. I will just put the oil in, comb through and make sure they are not there.
So, if you have had a problem, feel free to email me and I am will tell you any other info you need.
The list of oils that I remember are:
Eucalyptus, Peppermint, lavender, geranium. I am going from memory but I think we put a mixture of olive oil and eucalyptus oil (equal amounts) and rubbed this on the scalp. I put the lavender and geranium oil in the shampoo and the peppermint oil in with the conditioner.
Shirley, if you are reading this, I think there was one other oil and I cannot remember what it was. Can you let us know in the comments section? Thanks
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13 comments:
This post was written just for me Therese! How did you guess?
I've spent the week trawling the internet for head lice remedies as I don't like using chemicals. I have four girls with very thick hair and my preschooler caught headlice from her nursery and has passed it on to two of her sister's already:( I've been combing like mad which isn't easy with 2 wriggly little ones.
I'll definatly be checking out the essential oils you mentioned.
Thanks so much for passing on the info!
Don't forget to wash all the bed linens too. And any "Throws" you might have over chairs with high backs (ditto sofas.
And make sure the kids know not to share combs, etc. In the US I believe if kids have lice they don't let them back in school until the lice is gone. I don't know how it is "down under."
Suzy,
I am so glad to be of help. I know when I first had them I was scouring the internet looking for something that would help.
Karen,
The info on the net is very mixed about bed linen and chairs. Last time we did the essential oils I did strip all the beds after the first couple of days, washed and hung them in the sun. Someone told me that all the hype about the lice not dieing because you haven't stripped the beds or they are in lounge chairs etc is just because the chemical treatments really don't kill them. I know that when we used our first chemical treatment I would comb through and could see the lice crawling still even though the girls hair was absolutely drenched with the treatment. When we used the essential oils, I would comb through and they would be dead. I did manage to get rid of the lice without going overboard with the bed linen.
The children here are allowed back in school if you have started treatment.
I used to use tea tree oil on my kids scalps, maybe that is the one you can't remember?
My daughter was infested with nits years ago...her hair was so long and so thick that she had to have her hair cut (chemical treatments never worked). I would then put a huge amount of conditioner on her hair and then for what seemed like hours, I would go though each strand of hair with the nit comb, removing large critters and pulling off the nit eggs quite easily with the conditioner making it easy for them to slide out of the hair.
I also avocate washing everything that had been in contact with the childs head...especially hair accessories, caps, hats, pillow cases.
My children are now 16 and 12 and thankfully haven't had them for a good few years now, but goodness me...nits can be such an annoyance and so hard to eradicate.
My daughter caught head lice at her preschool in February. I got the dreaded call and immediately went into a panic. I was frantically searching the net for tips, cures and advice. We got lucky, I think, because she only had a few nits. She has a short bob hair style and her hair is thin so it was easy to comb, but it still took forever.
I stripped every bed, vacuumed like mad, sprayed the mattresses, sealed up throw pillows and other things like stuffed animals in plastic bags and washed two carseat covers.
We high-tailed it out of town that weekend after every possible nit had been combed out and there were no others to be found.
I had heard that lice need a human host to survive so if you can "abandon" your house for a few days any remaining lice or eggs will die off. I'm not sure if that was the cure, or even the smartest thing to do, but it worked for us. The lice didn't reappear and no one in our family got it either.
I think I probably itched for two months, convinced I was next.
I was grateful my daughter has short, thin hair. The days of wishing she had long, thick and curly hair died the day she got lice.
I did read about an oil treatment, but it involved leaving the oil (olive oil I think) on overnight wrapped in plastic. My daughter was two days shy of turning three so I knew that wasn't going to work. If I had heard of your oil tips I would have definitely tried it. So I will keep your post in the back of my mind just in case. And I say "just in case" timidly. I really don't want to have to deal with lice ever again....but atleast I'll know what other options there are so I don't have to use those harsh chemicals on my precious little Boss Lady again.
Aren't they a pest!
I had them as a kid, and it sounds like they like thick (and long) hair.
I swear by eucalyptus, tea tree and olive oil...and the glad wrap over the head (with the oils still left in) overnight I can imagine would work too.
Interesting about abandoning the house 4 a couple of days, will have to remember that one!
Hi Theresa
Like you we have had nits at our place bough home by the 7 year old boy recently.
I used a natural nit treatment and did the fine combing using conditioner which is supposed to both drown nits as well as make sliding through hair easier.
A teacher at my son's school swears by hair spray saying that by using it on her own hair she has never had nits as a kindergarten teacher.
I really hate the washing caused by nits as it really makes the load more
Karnak
Lice is the biggest nusance! Not only do you have to treat the hair, but you have to wash the sheets and towels and everything else in hot water to get them out of your fabrics.
I appreciate your use of "natural" ingredients ... in brief, the doc put my daughter on hormone therapy after her hysterectomy and she hated taking those manufactured drugs. She found someone in town who "prescribed" and made up totally natural hormones from plants and herbs, and my daugh says she feels better than ever ... God gave us the means to take care of ourselves without putting ALL our money into big drug companies, we just have to seek out those who have learned it and know what they are doing.
Hope all the kids are doing well, and you and hubby, too!
Love ya,
Abbey
We have this problem on a really annoyingly regular basis. What did God make nits for anyway?
We use tea tree oil, conditioner and a brilliant metal comb called nitty-gritty. It's expensive but it really works because it actually gets the eggs too.
I tend to do a check and a comb through regularly and that keeps the little horrors at bay.
Good luck with the battle.
we have the metal comb too. It was expensive but I am sure it is more affective than buying all the chemical treatments. I am convinced that they should not be allowed to sell them.
HI therese! can i steal some of this info and put it on my blog? very interesting and useful! Mum and a my aunt still have primary schoolers and they suffer the same dreaded problem.
when i was at school the advise was nit lotion (not too effective i think) wash sheets, throws, towels and hats in the sun and comb with the electric comb. put hair brushes through and hair elastics etc in a solution overnight.
I much prefer your suggestion of natural oils i'll try them when the inevitable time comes!!
P.S my MIL used garlic and olive oil on my little sister in law last year. gee it stunk but it did the job.
Annelisa, go ahead and post this info. I don't mind at all. One of the most frustrating things I found when my children first had it, many sites would tell you to buy their e book to get the only guaranteed treatment to solve your problems.
That was why I wanted to post something on here about it. When Shirley helped me last year I told her I was going to do a post about it but completely forgot about it and never did one. When I saw them in Amelia's hair though I decided it is time to do it.
Quit Nits was good ("organic" and all that). But if you use it, make sure you leave it in for longer than they suggest. I left it in my own hair for an hour and it worked a treat.
You could probably leave it in the kids' hair for 30 minutes with no worries.
Also, the boys got a #1 comb hair cut, which made treatment a breeze and even Bonnie (who was 4 at the time) got a #4 buzz cut too!
I think I just gave Eilidh's hair a trim to make it a bit easier. (She wouldn't consent to a buzz cut!)
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